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Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

-Maya Angelou

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Find A Beautiful Piece

Maya Angelou

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Find A Beautiful Piece Of Art. If You Fall In Love With Van Gogh Or Matisse Or John Oliver Killens, Or If You Fall Love With The Music Of Coltrane, The Music Of Aretha Franklin, Or The Music Of Chopin - Find Some Beautiful Art And Admire It, And Realize That That Was Created By Human Beings Just Like You, No More Human, No Less.

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Topic

Falling In Love

More From Maya Angelou

I Could Fall In Love With A Sumo Wrestler If He Told Stories And Made Me Laugh. Obviously, It Would Be Easier If Someone Was African-american And Lived Next Door And Went To The Same Church. Because Then I Wouldn't Have To Translate.

Falling In Love

Because Of Technological Breakthroughs, The Society Will Need Fewer And Fewer Unskilled Laborers.

A Friend May Be Waiting Behind A Stranger's Face.

What Is A Fear Of Living? It's Being Preeminently Afraid Of Dying. It Is Not Doing What You Came Here To Do, Out Of Timidity And Spinelessness. The Antidote Is To Take Full Responsibility For Yourself - For The Time You Take Up And The Space You Occupy. If You Don't Know What You're Here To Do, Then Just Do Some Good.

I Find It Interesting That The Meanest Life, The Poorest Existence, Is Attributed To God's Will, But As Human Beings Become More Affluent, As Their Living Standard And Style Begin To Ascend The Material Scale, God Descends The Scale Of Responsibility At Commensurate Speed.

Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's No Good. Humility Is Great, Because Humility Says, 'there Was Someone Before Me. I'm Following In Somebody's Footsteps.'

If Somebody Is Really Trying To Take Your Head Off With A Baseball Bat - I Don't Know How Long You're Supposed To Stand There And Turn The Other Cheek, So He Or She Can Get A Better Angle At Taking Your Head Off.

You Are The Sum Total Of Everything You've Seen, Heard, Eaten, Smelled, Been Told, Forgot- It's All Right There.

A Woman In Harmony With Her Spirit Is Like A River Flowing. She Goes Where She Will Without Pretense And Arrives At Her Destination Prepared To Be Herself And Only Herself

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

Stepping Onto A Brand-new Path Is Difficult, But Not More Difficult Than Remaining In A Situation, Which Is Not Nurturing To The Whole Woman.

It Is This Belief In A Power Larger Than Myself And Other Than Myself Which Allows Me To Venture Into The Unknown And Even The Unknowable.

Number Of Things Happen After I Was 50. One, You Are Hopefully Secure In What You Want To Do - Which Means That You Don't Spend A Lot Of Time Chewing On Your Knuckles About Your Reason For Being Here.also, You're At Your Most Beautiful. No Woman Is Ever More Beautiful Than She Is At 50.

[librarians] Study Their Field With As Much Determination And As Much Delight As Open-heart Surgeons.

I Know Something Better Is On The Road For Me.

Something Better

When I Was Asked To Do Something Good, I Often Say Yes, I'll Try, Yes, I'll Do My Best. And Part Of That Is Believing, If God Loves Me, If God Made Everything From Leaves To Seals And Oak Trees, Then What Is It I Can't Do?

I Also Wear A Hat Or A Very Tightly Pulled Head Tie When I Write. I Suppose I Hope By Doing That I Will Keep My Brains From Seeping Out Of My Scalp And Running In Great Gray Blobs Down My Neck, Into My Ears, And Over My Face.

To Be Angry Is Very Good. It Burns Out Things And Leaves Nutrients In The Soil. You Should Always Be Ready To Be Angry At Injustice And Cruelty.

Time Itself Is An Individual Gift. It Is Wise To Cherish It Carefully And Give It Away Generously.

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

My Son Is The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me. And Through Me - To A Lot Of People.

Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me

To Describe My Mother Would Be To Write About A Hurricane In Its Perfect Power. Or The Climbing, Falling Colors Of A Rainbow.

Mother Daughter

People Have To Feel Needed. Frequently, We Just Offer A Job And 'perks.' We Don't Always Offer People A Purpose. When People Feel There Is A Purpose And That They're Needed, There's Not Much Else To Do Except Let Them Do The Work.

Few, If Any, Survive Their Teens. Most Surrender To The Vague But Murderous Pressure Of Adult Conformity.

Just Like Moons And Suns, With Certainty Of Tides, Just Like Hopes Springing High, Still I'll Rise.

Making A Decision To Write Was A Lot Like Deciding To Jump Into A Frozen Lake.

We Spend Precious Hours Fearing The Inevitable. It Would Be Wise To Use That Time Adoring Our Families, Cherishing Our Friends And Living Our Lives.

Life Is Going To Give You Just What You Put In It. Put Your Whole Heart In Everything You Do, And Pray, Then You Can Wait.

There Are Some Nights When Sleep Plays Coy, Aloof And Disdainful. And All The Wiles That I Employ To Win Its Service To My Side Are Useless As Wounded Pride, And Much More Painful.

If We All Hold On To The Mistake, We Can't See Our Own Glory In The Mirror Because We Have The Mistake Between Our Faces And The Mirror; We Can't See What We're Capable Of Being. You Can Ask Forgiveness Of Others, But In The End The Real Forgiveness Is In One's Own Self.

Ritie, Don't Worry 'cause You Ain't Pretty. Plenty Pretty Women I Seen Digging Ditches Or Worse. You Smart. I Swear To God, I Rather You Have A Good Mind Than A Cute Behind.

Forgiveness. It's One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give Yourself, To Forgive. Forgive Everybody. You Are Relieved Of Carrying That Burden Of Resentment. You Really Are Lighter. You Feel Lighter. You Just Drop That.

When I Try To Describe Myself To God I Say, 'lord, Remember Me? Black? Female? Six-foot Tall? The Writer?' And I Almost Always Get God's Attention.

On This Platform Of Peace, We Can Create A Language To Translate Ourselves To Ourselves And To Each Other.

I Think A Nap Or A Rest Overnight Is Great. But Who Needs Three Days Of Rest? Please! The Second Day, You Might Die.

When We Know Better, We Do Better.

Being Thankful Helps You To Be Present.people Commit Errors Because They Are Not Present.i Would Encourage Women And Men To Be Present - You'll Avoid Falling Into Certain Pits.for Instance, If You Know That A Person Has Just Lost His Wife Or Her Husband Or Lover, It's Unlikely That You Will Say Something That Will Hurt That Person's Feelings If You're Truly Paying Attention. You'll Make A Sweeter Life For Yourself And For Those Around You If You Are Present.

The Sadness Of The Women's Movement Is That They Don't Allow The Necessity Of Love. See, I Don't Personally Trust Any Revolution Where Love Is Not Allowed.

This Is What I Am Learning, At 82 Years Old: The Main Thing Is To Be In Love With The Search For Truth.

Every Journey Begins With A Single Step.

Nothing Can Dim The Light Which Shines From Within.

Growing Up, My Grandmother Did Not Want Worldly Music In The House. Then When I Went Out To California, I Started Listening To Spanish Music, Mostly Mexican Music. But Were I In Egypt, I Would Listen To The Music Of The People, Or If I Was In Italy, I'd Listen To Italian Music.

All Riddles Are Blues, / And All Blues Are Sad, / And I'm Only Mentioning / Some Blues I've Had.

A Wise Woman Wishes To Be No One's Enemy; A Wise Woman Refuses To Be Anyone's Victim.

The Idea Of Overcoming Is Always Fascinating To Me. It's Fascinating Because Few Of Us Realize How Much Energy We Have Expended Just To Be Here Today. I Don't Think We Give Ourselves Enough Credit For The Overcoming.

I Made The Decision To Quit Show Business. Give Up The Skintight Dresses And Manicured Smiles. The False Concern Over Sentimental Lyrics. I Would Never Again Work To Make People Smile Inanely And Would Take On The Responsibility Of Making Them Think.

We Need Language To Tell Us Who We Are, How We Feel, What We're Capable Of- To Explain The Pains And Glory Of Our Existence.

I Think We Ought To Give Ourselves More Time. We Should Be More Patient With Ourselves And With Each Other.

Growing Up, I Decided, A Long Time Ago, I Wouldn't Accept Any Manmade Differences Between Human Beings, Differences Made At Somebody Else's Insistence Or Someone Else's Whim Or Convenience.

If You Have Only One Smile In You Give It To The People You Love.

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

I Did What I Knew.. When I Knew Better, I Did Better

I'm Really Saddened By The Attempts To Separate And Polarize. This Is A Time When We Have Hungry People, People Out Of Work, And People Out Of Spirit. This Is A Time Where We Need To Uplift, Not To Separate.

Money And Power Can Liberate Only If They Are Used To Do So. They Can Imprison And Inhibit More Finally Than Barred Windows And Iron Chains.

I Know For Sure That Love Saves Me And That It Is Here To Save Us All.

I’ve Got A Magic Charm That I Keep Up My Sleeve, I Can Walk The Ocean Floor And Never Have To Breathe.

In A World So Rife With Vulgarity, With Brutality And Violence, Love Exists. I’m Grateful To Know That It Exists.

Whenever I'm Around Some Who Is Modest, I Think, 'run Like Hell And All Of Fire.' You Don't Want Modesty, You Want Humility.

Life Is A Gift, And I Try To Respond With Grace And Courtesy.

You Can Only Become Truly Accomplished At Something You Love. Don’t Make Money Your Goal. Instead Pursue The Things You Love Doing And Then Do Them So Well That People Can’t Take Their Eyes Off Of You.

To Know And Not To Do Is In Fact Not To Know. We Need To Be Active Instruments Against Evil. We Need To Do.

We Are All Creative, But By The Time We Are Three Of Four Years Old, Someone Has Knocked The Creativity Out Of Us. Some People Shut Up The Kids Who Start To Tell Stories. Kids Dance In Their Cribs, But Someone Will Insist They Sit Still. By The Time The Creative People Are Ten Or Twelve, They Want To Be Like Everyone Else.

Every Day Offers You 10,000 Reasons To Cry, But If You Can Find Just One Reason To Laugh Then You Will Be All Right.

People Will Never Forget How You Made Them Feel.

No One Comes From The Earth Like Grass. We Come Like Trees. We All Have Roots.

We Are Here To Love Each Other. That Is Why You Are Alive. That Is What Life Is For.

Love Each Other

All Of Childhood's Unanswered Questions Must Finally Be Passed Back To The Town And Answered There. Heroes And Bogey Men, Values And Dislikes, Are First Encountered And Labeled In That Early Environment. In Later Years They Change Faces, Places And Maybe Races, Tactics, Intensities And Goals, But Beneath Those Penetrable Masks They Wear Forever The Stocking-capped Faces Of Childhood.

Only Equals Make Friends, Every Other Relationship Is Contrived And Off Balance.

Love Liberates. It Doesn't Just Hold, That's Ego. Love Liberates.

He Was A Simple Man Who Had No Inferiority Complex About His Lack Of Education, And Even More Amazing No Superiority Complex Because He Had Succeeded Despite That Lack.

I Believe That Each Of Us Comes From The Creator Trailing Wisps Of Glory. So At This Wonderful, Young Age Of 65, I Don't Know Yet What The Lord Has For Me To Do. I Try To Live Up To The Energy And To The Calling, But I Wouldn't Dare Say I Have Even Scratched The Surface Yet.

It Is Sad But True That Sometimes We Need The Tragedy To Help Us To See How Human We Are And How We Are More Alike Than We Are Different.

I Have Enough Of Life In Me To Make Somebody Jealous Enough To Want To Knock Me Down. I Have So Much Courage In Me That I Have The Effrontery, The Incredible Gall To Stand Up. That's It. That's How You Get To Know Who You Are.

On The Day Of Your Birth, The Creator Filled Countless Storehouses, Set Aside For Your Use And Yours Alone.

Nobody Can Enjoy Unless We All Enjoy, Truly Enjoy.

If You're Serious, You Really Understand That It's Important That You Laugh As Much As Possible And Admit That You're The Funniest Person You Ever Met. You Have To Laugh. Admit That You're Funny. Otherwise, You Die In Solemnity.

It Is Better To Control Oneself, If One Can, And Not Hit Back. But On Certain Occasions, It Is Imperative To Defend Oneself. I Don't Think It's Fair To Ask Anybody Not To Defend Herself Or Himself.

Without Defeats, How Do You Really Know Who The Hell You Are? If You Never Had To Stand Up To Something - To Get Up, To Be Knocked Down, And To Get Up Again - Life Can Walk Over You Wearing Football Cleats. But Each Time You Do Get Up, You're Bigger, Taller, Finer, More Beautiful, More Kind, More Understanding, More Loving. Each Time You Get Up, You're More Inclusive. More People Can Stand Under Your Umbrella.

There Were People Who Went To Sleep Last Night, Poor And Rich And White And Black, But They Will Never Wake Again. And Those Dead Folks Would Give Anything At All For Just Five Minutes Of This Weather Or Ten Minutes Of Plowing. So You Watch Yourself About Complaining. What You're Supposed To Do When You Don't Like A Thing Is Change It. If You Can't Change It, Change The Way You Think About It.

No Matter What Happens, Or How Bad It Seems Today, Life Does Go On, And It Will Be Better Tomorrow.

You Know, I Never Trust People Who Don't Laugh, Who Said, "i Am Serious" And Act As If They Put Airplane Glue On The Back Of Their Hands And Stuck The Glue To Their Foreheads. I Think, "you're Not Serious; You're Boring As Hell."

Light And Shadow Are Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin. We Can Illuminate Our Paths Or Darken Our Way. It Is A Matter Of Choice.

You Have To Have Courage To Love Somebody. Because You Risk Everything. Everything.

If You're For The Right Thing, You Do It Without Thinking.

If The Door Has Been Opened And I've Been Invited, Or If I'm Not Invited And I Somehow Know I'm Supposed To Go In There, I Put Myself Together And Go In, Praying All The While. I Try To Learn Something Before I Go In. I Try To Show Some Respect Of The Place I'm Going Into.

Don't Let Anybody Raise You. You've Been Raised.

I Know That I've Been Guided By God. I Am Obedient.

I Would Be Stupid Not To Be On My Own Side. But I'm A Human Being, Too. And I'm On The Side Of Human Beings, Rather Than On The Side Of Crocodiles.

A Bizarre Sensation Pervades A Relationship Of Pretense. No Truth Seems True.

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

Women Been Gittin' Pregnant Ever Since Eve Ate That Apple.

I Am Convinced That Most People Do Not Grow Up ... Our Real Selves, The Children Inside, Are Still Innocent And Shy As Magnolias.

The First Thing I Do In The Morning When I Awaken Is Say, 'thank You, Lord!' I'm Grateful To Be Alive, And I'm Going To Try To Tell The Truth As Well As I Know And Tell It As Eloquently As I Can So That People Can Hear It.

In A Long Meter Hymn, A Singer - They Call It 'lays Out A Line.' And Then The Whole Church Joins In In Repeating That Line. And They Form A Wall Of Harmony So Tight, You Can't Wedge A Pin Between It.

Bitterness Is Like Cancer. It Eats Upon The Host. But Anger Is Like Fire. It Burns It All Clean.

If I Could Give You One Thought, It Would Be To Lift Someone Up. Lift A Stranger Up--lift Her Up. I Would Ask You, Mother And Father, Brother And Sister, Lovers, Mother And Daughter, Father And Son, Lift Someone. The Very Idea Of Lifting Someone Up Will Lift You, As Well.

Without Courage We Cannot Practice Any Other Virtue With Consistency.

I Have Need Of A Friend. There Is One And Only One Who Will Give The Air From His Failing Lungs For My Body's Mend. And That One Is My Love.

I Do Not Trust People Who Don't Love Themselves And Yet Tell Me, 'i Love You.' There Is An African Saying Which Is: Be Careful When A Naked Person Offers You A Shirt.

I Believe Talent Is Like Electricity. We Don't Understand Electricity. We Use It. You Can Plug Into It And Light Up A Lamp, Keep A Heart Pump Going, Light A Cathedral, Or You Can Electrocute A Person With It. Electricity Will Do All That. It Makes No Judgment. I Think Talent Is Like That. I Believe Every Person Is Born With Talent.

The Truth Is, No One Of Us Can Be Free Until Everybody Is Free.

It Is Very Dangerous To Make A Person Larger Than Life Because, Then, Young Men And Women Are Tempted To Believe, Well, If He Was That Great, He's Inaccessible, And I Can Never Try To Be That Or Emulate That Or Achieve That.

I Thought If War Did Not Include Killing, I'd Like To See One Every Year.

Soft You Day, Be Velvet Soft, My True Love Approaches, Look You Bright, You Dusty Sun, Array Your Golden Coaches. Soft You Wind, Be Soft As Silk My True Love Is Speaking. Hold You Birds, Your Silver Throats, His Golden Voice I'm Seeking. Come You Death, In Haste, Do Come My Shroud Of Black Be Weaving, Quiet My Heart, Be Deathly Quiet, My True Love Is Leaving.

Preach It, I Say Preach It.

Until Recently Each Generation Found It More Expedient To Plead Guilty To The Charge Of Being Young And Ignorant, Easier To Take The Punishment Meted Out By The Older Generation (which Had Itself Confessed To The Same Crime Short Years Before). The Command To Grow Up At Once Was More Bearable Than The Faceless Horror Of Wavering Purpose, Which Was Youth.

Putting Down On Paper What You Have To Say Is An Important Part Of Writing, But The Words And Ideas Have To Be Shaped And Cleaned, Cleaned As Severely As A Dog Cleans A Bone, Cleaned Until There's Not A Shred Of Anything Superfluous.

My Encouragement To You Is To Go Tomorrow To The Library.

Happiness Is A Chance To Talk To A Friend, To Hear Good Music, To Have A Good Glass Of Wine. Happiness Is A Chance To Be Myself And To Find People With Whom I Agree Or Who I Don't Agree But I Can Learn Something.

I Wish That We Could Look Into Each Other's Faces, In Each Other's Eyes, And See Our Own Selves. I Hope That The Children Have Not Been So Scarred By Their Upbringing That They Only Think Fear When They See Someone Else Who Looks Separate From Them.

At Our Best, We're All Teachers

We Write For The Same Reason That We Walk, Talk, Climb Mountains Or Swim The Oceans — Because We Can. We Have Some Impulse Within Us That Makes Us Want To Explain Ourselves To Other Human Beings. That’s Why We Paint, That’s Why We Dare To Love Someone- Because We Have The Impulse To Explain Who We Are. Not Just How Tall We Are, Or Thin… But Who We Are Internally… Perhaps Even Spiritually. There’s Something, Which Impels Us To Show Our Inner-souls. The More Courageous We Are, The More We Succeed In Explaining What We Know.

I Have No Modesty. Modesty Is A Learned Affectation. It's Like Decal Stuck Up On A Person.

I'm A Religious Woman. And I Feel I Have Responsibility. I Have No Modesty At All. I'm Even Afraid Of It - It's A Learned Affectation And It's Just Stuck On Me Like Decals. Now I Pray For Humility Because That Comes From Inside Out.

If You Have Done The Best You Can Do And If You Have Gotten All You Could Extract From Something, You Have Given All You Had To Give, Then The Time Has Come When You Can Do No More Than Say Thank You And Move On.

You Rose Into My Life Like A Promised Sunrise, Brightening My Days With The Light In Your Eyes. I've Never Been So Strong. Now I'm Where I Belong.

If I'm Going To A New Country, I Try To Learn Something About The Language And The Culture, So I Don't Just Go Bumbling Over Things.

I Have Found That Among Its Other Benefits, Giving Liberates The Soul Of The Giver.

Life Is A Gift, And I Try To Respond With Grace And Courtesy.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Once Said That Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

Dare To Let Your Dreams Reach Beyond You...

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive

Will To Survive

Each Time I Write A Book, Every Time I Face That Yellow Pad, The Challenge Is So Great. I Have Written Eleven Books, But Each Time I Think, ‘uh Oh, They’re Going To Find Out Now. I’ve Run A Game On Everybody And They’re Going To Find Me Out.

Faith Is The Evidence Of The Unseen.

We Must Create A Climate Where People Agree That Human Beings Are More Alike Than Unalike. The Only Way To Do That Is Through Education.

When Asked How She Knows When Her Writing Is Where She Wants It To Be: "i Know When It's The Best I Can Do. It May Not Be The Best There Is. Another Writer May Do It Much Better. But I Know When It's The Best I Can Do. I Know That One Of The Great Arts That The Writer Develops Is The Art Of Saying, 'no. No, I'm Finished. Bye.' And Leaving It Alone. I Will Not Write It Into The Ground. I Will Not Write The Life Out Of It. I Won't Do That."

I Love The Song 'i Hope You Dance' By Lee Ann Womack. I Was Going To Write That Song, But Someone Beat Me To It.

Hate, It Has Caused A Lot Of Problems In The World, But Has Not Solved One Yet.

A Joyful Spirit Is Evidence Of A Grateful Heart.

Alone, All Alone Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone.

It Is Impossible To Struggle For Civil Rights, Equal Rights For Blacks, Without Including Whites. Because Equal Rights, Fair Play, Justice, Are All Like The Air: We All Have It, Or None Of Us Has It. That Is The Truth Of It.

I Want To Thank You, Lord, For Life And All That's In It. Thank You For The Day And For The Hour, And The Minute.

Poetry Puts Starch In Your Backbone So You Can Stand, So You Can Compose Your Life.

Living Well Is An Art That Can Be Developed.

I Think That That's The Wisest Thing - To Prevent Illness Before We Try To Cure Something.

How Important It Is For Us To Recognize And Celebrate Our Heroes And She-roes!

Hatred Is The Ballast Of The Rock Which Lies Upon Our Necks And Underfoot.

No One Has Ever Become Poor From Giving.

You Can't Be Consistently Fair, Consistently Generous, Consistently Just, Or Consistently Merciful. You Can Be Anything Erratically, But To Be That Thing Time After Time After Time, You Have To Have Courage.

Music Was My Refuge. I Could Crawl Into The Space Between The Notes And Curl My Back To Loneliness.

Hope Does Not Take Away Your Problems. It Can Lift You Above Them.

Don't Let The Man Bring You Down.

Few, If Any, Survive Their Teens. Most Surrender To The Vague But Murderous Pressure Of Adult Conformity.

I'm Convinced Of This: Good Done Anywhere Is Good Done Everywhere.

I Might Have It At Six-fifteen A.m. Just As Soon As I Get In, But Usually It's About Eleven O'clock When I'll Have A Glass Of Sherry.

Stand Up Straight And Realize Who You Are, That You Tower Over Your Circumstances. You Are A Child Of God. Stand Up Straight.

In Spite Of Everything That Was Done To Me And My Race, In Spite Of The Adversity And The Bitter Moments, Again We Rise.

At Our Best, We Are All Teachers

Intelligence Is A Separate Gift, For The Benefit Of Students, So That They May Think Of Themselves As Intellectual And Not Very Intelligent, Or Intelligent And Not Very Intellectual. One Hopes, Of Course, That They Try To Bring The Two Virtues, The Two Elements, Into Their Lives At The Same Time.

People Feel Guilty. And Guilt Is Stymieing. Guilt Immobilizes. Guilt Closes The Air Ducts And The Veins, And Makes People Ignorant.

I Find In My Poetry And Prose The Rhythms And Imagery Of The Best - I Mean, When I'm At My Best - Of The Good Southern Black Preachers. The Lyricism Of The Spirituals And The Directness Of Gospel Songs And The Mystery Of Blues Are In My Music Or In My Poetry And Prose, Or I Missed Everything.

There Is No Place Where God Is Not.

I Try To See Every Day As A Celebration.

I Think All Poems Are Commissioned. They Just Come To Me Without Somebody Outside Commissioning Them. The Idea Comes And I Will Live With Them 'til I Get It As Close To What I Mean. I've Never Been Totally Satisfied. I've Come Close A Few Times.

Depending On Who I Am Talking About Or Who's Talking Through Me - If The Person Is A Kind Of Hip-hop, Or Rhythm And Blues Person, Or If The Person Is A Kind Of Old-fashion Gothic, Meaning Gothic Attitude, Then That Will Determine What Form The Poem Will Take.

If I Insist On Being Pessimistic, There Is Always Tomorrow. Today I Am Blessed.

It's In The Click Of My Heels, The Bend Of My Hair, The Palm Of My Hand, The Need Of My Care, 'cause I'm A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

Don't Bring Negative To My Door.

I'm Grateful To Intelligent People. That Doesn't Mean Educated. That Doesn't Mean Intellectual. I Mean Really Intelligent. What Black Old People Used To Call 'mother Wit' Means Intelligence That You Had In Your Mother's Womb. That's What You Rely On. You Know What's Right To Do.

I'm Sorry To Say That When Some People Get To Age 50, They Say, "well, That's The End, I'll Never Have To Do Sex Again." They Lay Down First And Get Up Last! But In Your Sixties, Everything Is Sweeter. You Have More Time.

There Is An Amazing Something In The American Psyche Which Speaks About Courage, And It Says, 'yes I Can,' ... Yes, We Will Overcome It All Because We Have The Spirit To Do So.

I Wasn't A Pretty Girl. I Was Six Feet Tall At 15, You Know.

We May Encounter Many Defeats, But We Must Not Be Defeated. It May Even Be Necessary To Encounter The Defeat So That We Can Know Who We Are. So That We Can See, "oh, That Happened, And I Rose. I Did Get Knocked Down Flat In Front Of The Whole World, And I Rose. I Didn't Run Away; I Rose Right Where I'd Been Knocked Down." That's How You Get To Know Yourself.

Exchange Love For Hate...thereby, Making The Present Comfortable And The Future Promising.

Inspirational Forgiveness

Y’all Dropped The Ball And You Should Be Shamed.

Let's Tell The Truth To People. When People Ask, 'how Are You?' Have The Nerve Sometimes To Answer Truthfully. You Must Know, However, That People Will Start Avaoiding You Because, They, Too, Have Knees That Pain Them And Heads That Hurt And They Don't Want To Know About Yours. But Think Of It This Way: If People Avoid You, You Will Have More Time To Meditate And Do Fine Research On A Cure For Whatever Truly Afflicts You.

I Write Because I Am A Black Woman, Listening Attentively To Her People.

I Love Wisdom. And You Can Never Be Great At Anything Unless You Love It. Not Be In Love With It, But Love The Thing, Admire The Thing. And It Seems That If You Love The Thing, And You Don't Just Want To Possess It, It Will Find You. But If You're In Love With The Thing, It May Run Like Hell Away From You.

I Know, That Since Life Is Our Most Precious Gift, And As Far As We Can Be Absolutely Certain, It's Given To Us To Live But Once, Let Us So Live We Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue, And Inertia, And Timidity, And Ignorance, And In Our Last Moments We Can Say: 'all My Life, All My Conscious Energies, Have Been Dedicated To The Most Noble Cause In The World, The Liberation Of The Human Mind And Spirit - Beginning With My Own'.

My Mission In Life Is Not Merely To Survive, But To Thrive; And To Do So With Some Passion, Some Compassion, Some Humor, And Some Style

I Love A Hebrew National Hot Dog With An Ice-cold Corona - No Lime. If The Phone Rings, I Won't Answer Until I'm Done.

A Mother's Love Liberates.

I've Had Rainbows In My Clouds.

People Trying To Separate People Rather Than Bring Us Together... Please. You Don't Just See It In America. It's All Over The World.

Since Time Is The One Immaterial Object Which We Cannot Influence - Neither Speed Up Nor Slow Down, Add To Nor Diminish - It Is An Imponderably Valuable Gift. Each Of Us Has A Few Minutes A Day Or A Few Hours A Week Which We Could Donate To An Old Folks Home Or A Children's Hospital Ward. The Elderly Whose Pillows We Plump Or Whose Water Pitchers We Refill May Or May Not Thank Us For Our Gift, But The Gift Is Upholding The Foundation Of The Universe.

You Think You May Not Be Heard. Speak Anyway.

When Things Were Very Bad His Soul Just Crawled Behind His Heart And Curled Up And Went To Sleep

The Woman Who Survives Intact And Happy Must Be At Once Tender And Tough.

Words Are Things. You Must Be Careful, Careful About Calling People Out Of Their Names, Using Racial Pejoratives And Sexual Pejoratives And All That Ignorance. Don’t Do That. Some Day We’ll Be Able To Measure The Power Of Words. I Think They Are Things. They Get On The Walls. They Get In Your Wallpaper. They Get In Your Rugs, In Your Upholstery, And Your Clothes, And Finally In To You.

I Am A Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, That's Me.

I Became The Kind Of Parent My Mother Was To Me.

A Bizarre Sensation Pervades A Relationship Of Pretense. No Truth Seems True.

Growing Up, I Decided, A Long Time Ago, I Wouldn't Accept Any Manmade Differences Between Human Beings, Differences Made At Somebody Else's Insistence Or Someone Else's Whim Or Convenience.

We Need Joy As We Need Air. We Need Love As We Need Water. We Need Each Other As We Need The Earth We Share.

I Believe In Living A Poetic Life, An Art Full Life. Everything We Do From The Way We Raise Our Children To The Way We Welcome Our Friends Is Part Of A Large Canvas We Are Creating.

Inspirational Life

Give Yourself Time Just To Be With Yourself.

It Is Important That We Learn Humility, Which Says There Was Someone Else Before Me Who Paid For Me. My Responsibility Is To Prepare Myself So That I Can Pay For Someone Else Who Is Yet To Come.

Rainbows Are People Whose Lives Are Bright, Shining Examples For Others.

You Can't Use Up Creativity, Creative Thinking Builds On Itself And Increases The Creativity Of The Thinker...you Can't Use Up Creativity. The More You Use, The More You Have.

Open Your Eyes To The Beauty Around You, Open Your Mind To The Wonders Of Life, Open Your Heart To Those Who Love You, And Always Be True To Yourself.

I Come As One, But Stand As 10,000.

Just Do Right. Right May Not Be Expedient, It May Not Be Profitable, But It Will Satisfy Your Soul. It Brings You The Kind Of Protection That Bodyguards Can’t Give You. So Try To Live Your Life In A Way That You Will Not Regret Years Of Useless Virtue And Inertia And Timidity. Take Up The Battle. Take It Up. It’s Yours. This Is Your Life. This Is Your World.

My Hope Is That We Develop Enough Courage To Develop Courage. To Try To Have, Try To Learn To Treat Each Other Fairly, With Generosity And Kindness.

Poetry Is Music Written For The Human Voice.

Here On The Pulse Of This New Day You May Have The Grace To Look Up And Out And Into Your Sister's Eyes, Into Your Brother's Face, Your Country And Say Simply Very Simply With Hope Good Morning.

Politicians Must Set Their Aims For The High Ground And According To Our Various Leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, We Will Follow. Politicians Must Be Told If They Continue To Sink Into The Mud Of Obscenity, They Will Proceed Alone.

I Am A Woman Phenomenally, Phenomenal Woman That Is Your Grandmother, That Is Your Mother, That Is Your Sister, That Is You And That Is Me.

Phenomenal Woman

Self-pity In Its Early Stage Is As Snug As A Feather Mattress. Only When It Hardens Does It Become Uncomfortable.

Some People Cannot See A Good Thing When It Is Right Here, Right Now. Others Can Sense A Good Thing Coming When It Is Days, Months, Or Miles Away.

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Iain Duncan Smith

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